


Awful Metaphors

by DroppedAllTheseOreos



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-15 09:56:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18071201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DroppedAllTheseOreos/pseuds/DroppedAllTheseOreos
Summary: In all her years of editing novels, Saki had never been more terrified than when her girlfriend asked her to edit her first attempt at writing erotica.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> <http://tsupertsundere.tumblr.com/post/183167726064/mia7437-gallusrostromegalus> This post has haunted me ever since I first saw it, but eventually it inspired me to slap this together in a couple days.

Saki had been Asuna’s editor ever since she was an unknown writer, posting Sailor Moon fanfics on her blog, back when everyone only knew her as Poppi_Pipopapo. Asuna had a very... musical style of writing, to say the least. Her metaphors were usually music related, and there was a certain cadence to her sentences, setting up a rhythm for the mood in each scene. It was very hit or miss with readers, but the audience she had managed to capture was very dedicated to her work. Saki was one of these fans. The only thing that separated her from the pack of misspelled requests from young fans and general "this is good" comments were her critiques. There were people who were extremely sweet and excited about her works, and there were a few others who were unquestionably good at analysis, arguably even better than Saki, and Asuna adored them all. But something about 'Graphite_Fang's' comments drew her in when she saw them. There was always an excited energy about Asuna's craft shining through the text and it got her energized to write more. Twenty fics worth of comment threads between them convinced Asuna she needed to get this mystery person with another video game inspired username to edit for her.

They’d worked together up from middle school, all the way to high school, where Asuna said a temporary goodbye to fanfiction and moved on to attempting to compose and write songs. That ended rather quickly despite her fascination with the subject, and she moved on to drafting original fiction. Her childhood best friend Nico worked on the cover art for her very first light novel that they self-published. It wasn’t until they graduated and coordinated to go to the same university for literature degrees that they met in real life.

Six months after that first meeting lead to them dating. Eventually, they made it through college and moved in together. Asuna managed to self-publish a couple more light novels before graduating, and the two of them started work on getting published officially. This also heralded Asuna's return to writing fanfiction as an escape from stresses of meeting with professional editors that weren't her girlfriend and publishing companies.

Whenever Saki read her works, she could tell that Asuna would base characters—mainly the love interests—on different aspects of her, but exaggerated. She admitted that Saki was a muse for her, and Saki wasn’t sure what to do with that information at first.

She was a little embarrassed to read about herself in this way, like Asuna was just dressing her up in different outfits and wigs and focusing on a few specifics of her personality. Reading them was just a deep dive into how Asuna saw a few aspects of her at a time. It was like she was a new species of animal and Asuna was slowly documenting everything about her with each new story. Of course, she would tweak the gender and appearance when the depictions started sounding like she was trying to describe Saki rather than thinking about the character as a character. Saki didn't like the feeling of being under a microscope, but, in a way it was nice to have Asuna indirectly brag about her through her work. She could tell how lovingly Asuna had written each character and how she thought of Saki as someone who was compelling and brilliant made something flutter in her stomach.

But nothing that Asuna had ever written would ever prepare Saki for her first attempt writing erotica. She suddenly announced one day that she wanted to try her hands at it, and dumped a 50,000-word draft on Saki's tablet the next day, sheepishly explaining that she’d been working on it for a while but was too shy to bring it up until now. Before Saki could even question it, Asuna was bolting out the door, declaring she had some errands to run.

Saki sighed disappointedly, it wasn’t like she had anything else planned for the day, and sat down to run through as much of this draft as she could. She’d barely made it through the first sex scene (in chapter 7) before she was squeezing her eyes shut and gritting her teeth against an oncoming headache. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and paced a little, pulling out her phone.

“Hey, honey, what’s up?” Asuna answered.

“Asuna.” Saki deadpanned. “Darling, sweetheart, absolute love of my life. What the fuck were you thinking when you wrote, ‘ _her throbbing jazz café?_ ’”

A voice in the background burst into howls of laughter that Saki immediately recognized as Nico. An immediate bad omen. Saki liked Nico well enough. But she and Asuna were childhood best friends in the way that they reverted into mischievous, rebellious 12-year-olds whenever they met up. Them together made the manuscript being suddenly thrown onto her even more fishy.

“Oh, was that not a good description for it?”

Saki held back an inhuman shriek with a sharp inhale. She exhaled slowly to calm herself before speaking again. “Are you kidding me right now?”

“No? I wanted to try and keep with my usual metaphors—”

“KARINO ASUNA, I KNOW YOU CAN WRITE BETTER THAN THIS.” Saki screeched into the phone. “How dare you tell me that this is the best you could come up with?”

“Aww, you don’t think it’s good?” Asuna moped.

“No. This needs so much editing I don’t even want to think about how many months I’m gonna spend writing notes. And I feel like you and Nico are planning something behind my back because it's too awful for you to be seriously thinking about publishing this, so it has to be a distraction.”

Asuna giggled. “You caught me. It's not a real manuscript."

"Why..." Saki hissed.

"Maybe I'm planning to get you all hot and bothered while I was out?”

"Asuna I'm going to..." Saki was at a complete loss for words. What was she going to say? 'Break up with you' was wholly untrue and too hurtful. They didn't have that kind of playfully insulting relationship since Saki was more sensitive and Asuna reserved it more for when she was with Nico. Suddenly the perfect bargaining chip clicked into place.

"Asuna, I'm going to start singing in the shower again if this is legitimately what you think is sexy to me."

"Noooooo!" The sudden cry was accompanied by a snort of laughter that was definitely not Nico. Saki felt her stomach drop when she realized it sounded like her little brother Parado, making all kinds of alarms go off in her head. "Honey, please no, you're so tone deaf! Please, I really did do it because I thought you'd like it! Don't be mad!" Asuna wailed.

Saki turned her phone to speaker mode so she could rub at her temples. Asuna was attempting a long con and doing an awful job of it. Fine, she'd play along. “Hey, please calm down. I won't..." The other end of the line quieted down. Sighing dramatically, Saki continued. "If this is actually an allegory for the sex life you want to lead, I just want to confirm some things. You gave me a build like Samus fucking Aran, and I’m, and I quote, 'vibing your throbbing jazz café just so good,' with a dragon dick strap-on…” There’s a bark of laughter from a more masculine voice this time. She paused to let them settle down. “Are you _sure_ that’s what you want from our non-existent sex life whenever we decide to start that up?”

There’s a moment of hesitation on the other end of the line, punctuated only by a few giggles from what Saki can only assume is their entire entourage of friends.

“Absolutely.” Asuna ended up saying confidently.

Saki rolled her eyes, but her lips quirked up in a fond smile. “All right. Well, have fun with everyone on whatever you're doing. And I’ll maybe _consider_ sex after we have an extensive talk about your sentence structure. Now, I need to start doing some push ups and get to shooting the space pterodactyl that killed my parents if I need to be ripped by the time you wanna get some.”

There's a huge burst of laughter from the group, and even Asuna broke character to chortle.

“Aww, thanks, darling. Looking forward to it. Love you and good luck.” Asuna giggles.

“Love you too, Asuna.”

She hung up looked back to the open draft on her tablet, groaning at the thought of tearing through the rest of it. Everyone in their friend group must've contributed to it, which is why it turned into such a huge mess. The thought endeared her to it a little more, but it’s not enough to convince her to go back to that garbage fire at the moment. Instead, she opened up the manuscript that they were actually trying to get published.

She was near the end of it and there was a hastily written note about the side characters getting married and ending the novel with the protagonist attending it. Asuna already wrote up an ending to the novel, but she'd been waffling on the idea of devoting more time to the supporting cast with this scene. They'd been talking about marriage a lot and it got them to talking about their own relationship and considering marriage in real life. They were both in agreement that it would be nice to take that next step. But a time to go through with it never really came up. She put a big circle around the text to remind herself to bring it up when Asuna got home so they could finish up this draft and send it off. After staring at the 'marriage?' written in big characters and emphasized in her notes, she made a little note next to it. 'For real this time, not just as a book idea.'


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More shenanigans with the crew that was supposed to be in the first chapter. It feels better in it's own chapter and needed extra work.

At the local shopping mall, a quick train ride away from their shared apartment, Asuna sighed in relief as Saki hung up on her.

“That could’ve gone so much better, why did you guys blow your cover?” She looked up at her friends.

They’d all huddled around the phone out in the parking lot to hear Saki’s reactions to their awful novel that Asuna had to turn into a vaguely functioning piece of fiction to keep Saki "distracted" they were all out.

“It was too funny.” Parado wheezed. “Who the hell came up with the dragon dildo part, and how much of a deep dive did you do into Saki’s internet history?”

Asuna hid her face, hating the fact that she created that abomination with her own two hands. “Parado, please stop talking about it, I’m actually dying—"

“Wait she’s legit into dragon strap-ons?” Emu spluttered.

“No! She used to go by Graphite online!” Parado’s met with a sea of blank stares, two expressions of recognition and one face flush with embarrassment, hidden by meticulously painted nails.

“It’s the name of a dragon from a Genm franchise.” Emu explained hesitantly.

“Oh damn, lucky guess then.” Taiga at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

Kiriya scoffed. “Asking me about the weirdest dick I own and turning it into a suggestion is not a ‘lucky guess,’ _Taiga_.”

Nico burst into a bout of laughter, sounding like borderline screaming as she leaned on Hiiro for support. He looked all kinds of uncomfortable, and Asuna couldn't tell if the line his lips were set in was suppressed laughter or disgust. She covered her mouth again, not sure if it was in secondhand embarrassment for him or trying to stop herself from bursting out into hysterics as well. There was going to be time to laugh about their disaster piece later; they came here with a mission in mind.

Five months ago, right before Asuna started asking for prompts to make the accursed "novel" from her friends, Saki idly brought up getting married during one of their discussions over her current work. After discussing it seriously for a few weeks, it just seemed like the next logical step for them. They already lived together and had been dating for nearly six years. The only things left to do were adopt a pet and get married. Once Asuna and Saki were sure that they wanted to take the next step, and since the order was arbitrary and the pet was on hold due to their very different views on what kind of pet they wanted, Asuna readied her long-term proposal plan.

Saki had sort of simple tastes, so the planning didn't need to be extravagant like proposals in movies. But it was a big deal to Asuna, and a good excuse to get the entire group together. She just needed to figure out a way to distract Saki while she was out with all the squad, picking out a proposal gift and maybe looking at some ideas for wedding arrangements. Thus came the idea for the fake novel draft.

They all got together over karaoke one day and brainstormed what the worst possible thing to make into a "novel" would be. Saki had to go through it as slowly as possible and give them time to shop for a proposal gift. Eventually, they decided it had to be something Asuna wasn't used to writing so she'd make more mistakes. The only genre she hadn't at least dabbled in yet was erotica. Half the group erupted into terrible, raunchy ideas but Asuna thought it was so funny at the time she wrote all of them down as things to incorporate.

It wasn't until she was about 9,000 words deep that she realized this was a horrible mistake. She legitimately could've stopped at any time. She wasn't obligated to put everything in, and honestly, she could stop now. But Asuna's parents didn't raise a quitter, and leaving any kind of draft unfinished stressed her more than anything. Also, she would never admit it, but she was weirdly into this mirror sex scene she'd somehow gotten the characters into and had to finish at least that.

Roughly 41,000 words later she released the draft onto Saki. When she arrived at the mall and told them how writing went, everyone looked at her in a mix of shock and horror that she dedicated so much to a minor joke. An overly embarrassing phone call later, they were on part two of the plan, finding a proposal gift, and maybe wedding stuff. The group headed inside, still giggling and joking about the call until she begged them all to shut up and focus.

Asuna rarely came to the mall. It felt overwhelming with so many floors and shops to deal with, on top of the crowds and the elevator music humming from overhead speakers. Everyone had an idea of Asuna's discomfort with places like this and tried to be as helpful as possible, making sure she had someone nearby at all times in case the group got split by the crowds. As they went from store to store, the rest of the squad pointed out suggestions. All of them were nice, and she thought they were appropriate, but nothing seemed quite right. From a proposal cake to stuffed animals and matching shirts; they all had their own little charms, but Asuna wanted something a little more personal.

When they stopped over at the arcade for a break, Asuna looked over at one of the claw machines and saw what could be the perfect proposal gift. She ran over to it, and everyone followed, sharing confused looks. From the display case in the back of the machine, a locket themed after Sailor Moon’s magical compact hung from a rack. It was the show that brought them together, so what could be better to propose with?

Asuna squeezed in between the machine and its adjacent one to get a look inside the slightly open necklace. She could see a hollow space where photos could be held and immediately thought of all the couple pictures she could stick in there.

“So, the compact necklace?” Nico asks excitedly.

Asuna nods and Taiga helps pull her out from between the machines. Nico, Parado, and Emu all charge at the game, raring to win this thing and beat the others at it. After about five consecutive tries from all of them, they have a decently sized collection of Sailor Moon merch, most of it on Kiriya, Nico and Taiga at this point, but haven’t even come close to getting the locket.

“This thing is rigged,” Parado huffed. Emu patted his shoulder to placate him, but it’s obvious from his expression that he was thinking the same thing.

“I wanna give it a go.” Kiriya broke up his sword fight with Nico and their plastic Uranus and Saturn toys to squirm past all of them.

He tried a few times, disappointingly coming up with nothing. He looked like he wanted to give the machine a good kick when Taiga pushed past, shoving him towards Emu to be consoled. He makes a good effort, actually managing to move the locket’s box in a favorable position, but that’s as far as he got before knocking it into an impossible place between ribbons and tiaras. They all looked at Hiiro expectantly, and he sighed heavily. Surprisingly, he managed to nab a Sailor Mercury tiara, freeing up the locket a little bit. Nico put the tiara on him for his good work, waving the tiny Sailor Saturn glaive around like she was knighting him. But the locket remained elusive after they all went around to try grab it again.

Everyone turned to Asuna.

“No, no, no. You all know I’m garbage at these kinds of things. My depth perception…” She trailed off.

"It's for my sister, dude. It's gotta be you." Parado stated like it was a prophecy.

“It doesn’t hurt to try.” Emu patted her on the shoulder. "Plus, Taiga's eyes are really bad, and look how far he got."

Taiga made an offended noise before he was pushed out of the way by Nico. “We’ll all help out.” She bopped Asuna on the shoulder and started squeezing between the machines.

Parado took up the opposite side and the rest of the guys stood around at the corners and front to help check through both panels of glass, making a sort of system where they'd all help her see and she could just focus on the controls. She nodded, feeling tears well up and trying to blink them away because this was a stupid thing to cry about. But she couldn't help it. She had the best friends anyone could ever ask for, and she was getting mushy over how much she loves them.

Asuna took a steadying breath and put her coin in, starting up the game. Everyone honed in on the claw and the box. Emu, Nico and Parado shouted out some commands all at once but she managed to follow them. They kept working together, helping her get the claw into the right position. A few fights broke out, because of course they did with this friend group, and Asuna panicked at the differing commands being shouted at her. But they managed to pull themselves together. She glanced down at the timer, feeling the pressure from the numbers slowly ticking down from fifteen. The claw's swinging from the last move they made, and they just needed to wait for it to still.

By the ten second mark, it’s still swinging, and Asuna felt her anxiety spike. It finally stopped at seven seconds, and Asuna slammed on the release button. They all watched with bated breath as it reached down and clasped around the box. It slowly lifted, slipping a little and Nico looked ready to punch through the glass and grab it. The locket managed to stabilize, and it slowly drifted over the chute. It slipped a little more, and there was a moment where Nico and Parado made eye contact and nodded slightly, like they just agreed to tip the whole machine over if everything went wrong.

Finally, the claw opened and the box fell on top of the prizes right next to the chute. Parado made an inhuman noise, and Nico readied a fist. But there was a dull thunk, the box wobbled and tipped into the chute. There’s a tense silence as Asuna leaned down to pull the prize from the door before everyone’s swarming her and screaming excitedly.

She brought them all to the purikura floor, noticing Kiriya had a slight limp, and she made a concerned face at him. He shot her a smirk back and thumbs up as Nico went to get a booth. They took some photos to commemorate the victory. They made her hoist the box over her head like a trophy as they surrounded her, fake screaming and pointing at her excitedly for one. When it was time to decorate, Asuna picked one where they’re all nicely posed and smiling and had Nico draw Sailor Scout tiaras and bows on all of them. When the photos developed, she pulled that one from the strip and fit it into the locket.

“You’re not gonna put a picture of just the two of you?” Emu looked over her shoulder.

“Well, there’s two parts that can hold pictures. I’ll just put it in the other side. Saki needs to know how hard we worked for this.”

Asuna carefully put the locket back in its box and tucked it safely away in her purse. Her heart felt fuller than ever before, and she belatedly noticed the happy tears streaming down her face. Nico put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. Slowly everyone piled on, and she's quietly sobbing into the mess of limbs holding her tight. With the second most emotional event in her life over, all she had to do was get through the third. And hopefully, move to the first from there.


End file.
